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Thanks to one or more of my Facebook friends, I just had to save and try this recipe since it looked so amazing. The one problem is that it will take me a week to eat it all. I’ll have to see how it microwaves. With the LabBand, if it gets too tough then it will not go through the band and make me sick.

A few notes and things that I did differently:

I did not have any avocado oil, so I used Extra Virgin Olive Oil instead.

I cheated on the chicken and bought my favorite pre-sliced chicken since it was on sale at Sam’s in a 2 pack. I sliced it even smaller so, I would not have to cut it further for it to fit with my LapBand.

When cooking the Spaghetti Squash, I followed the directions below and some of the squash was not done. I highly recommend coating the inside of the squash with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and a little salt and pepper.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the spaghetti squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and place it shell side up on a baking sheet. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and reduce the temperature to 350 degrees.

Meanwhile, heat your oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté for 5 minutes. Season your chicken with salt and pepper and add it to the skillet.

Sauté until the chicken is cooked through, about 5-7 minutes.

Add the spinach and artichokes and sauté another 1-2 minutes until the spinach is wilted. Remove from heat.

Transfer the chicken mixture to a large bowl. Scrape out the spaghetti squash strands and add them to the bowl with the chicken. Mix well and add the parmesan cheese and cream cheese. Transfer this mixture back to the spaghetti squash shells on the baking sheet.

Top each spaghetti squash with 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes, until heated through and cheese is melted, using your oven’s broiler for the last two minutes to brown the cheese. Enjoy!

January Storms – Our area was hit with 2 devastating weather events about 22 days apart. Thunderstorm Wind Event and tornadoes ripped through our area on January 2nd and 22nd.

#AdventureFamily – At the end of October 2016, Cynthia and I joined an online group of like minded thinkers led, by our friend John-Erik. In February, Cynthia and I said yes to an adventure that took us to Orlando to meet perfectly good strangers and stay in the same house for a long weekend. We had to trust our coach, John-Erik and he did not disappoint. The people in the group were from all over the US and even a couple from the UK. We had a great time learning about our dreams and spent a nice at Magic Kingdom. These people have supported us and have become family.

Baptism – I rededicated my life to God and remembered by Baptism on Easter. See my blog post here.

Our Baby – We brought home our new baby. He’s a male Dorkie named Buddy. He is in the process of being trained as an emotional support dog for Cynthia. We hope that once he’s certified that we can take him around to the hospitals and other areas to give people a little joy in their life.

Parents Health – Dad spent a lot of the time sick and in the hospital. He had 7 hospitalizations and 15+ ER visits. He had a round of Pneumonia that I never thought that the doctors were going to solve, but thank the Lord they did after his 3rd and 4th hospitalization for Pneumonia. Mom has had her health issues as well and was hospitalized once during the same time Dad was in and out of the hospital. They are both back to doing as well as can be expected to start 2018.

Dominican Republic – I was finally able to travel on another international mission trip. This trip took me to the Dominican Republic where we helped the people of the batey. It was a great trip after I finished being sick for the first 48 hours of the trip. See my blog post on the trip here.

Business – Cynthia and I made the decision to stop her It Works! business. It was a hard decision for many different reasons, but we realized that It Works! was not our dream, it was just a vehicle to our dreams and this vehicle was dead beyond repair. In December, I started a new venture with an excellent company called HempWorx. We help people get healthly by using the purest CBD Oil in the form of drops and other topical solutions. Check out my site here.

My Journey to Health – Back in January, when Dad was in the hospital, I finally got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I hit rock bottom. As I sat their looking at him laying in the hospital bed, I pictured myself laying there and I made the decision that I was not going to live my life like him and I was not going to put that burden on Cynthia that I’ve had to endure.

After a lot of prayer, research, and discussions with my doctors, close family and friends, I made the decision to start a program to prepare for LapBand surgery. The program started on March 1st (fittingly on my Dad birthday) and I did great with the program. Pre-surgery I lost 45 pounds in 8 months. On November 1st, I had the LapBand surgery. My surgery went well except as the nurses was putting glue on my wounds, I went from sleeping to wide awake and thrashing. It took them 5 minutes to get me settled down so that they could finish and get me to recovery. My surgeon said that I was only the 2nd person that he had this happen to in 17 years of surgery.

I was on a 23 hour hold at the hospital due to my sleep apnea so, I spent the night in the hospital as planned. The next morning, I still could not keep down even a sip of water. I was being given plenty of the best anti-nausea medications available. The doctor would not release me until I could keep down liquids. They started me on some IV medications to try to help my stomach out, but they did not work and after the next day, I was still the same. A swallow study and x-rays was ordered and they found that the band was perfectly placed, but everything was getting stuck as it should have started heading for the band. The doctor checked to make sure that all the fill was removed from the band, hopeful that it would be an easy fix, but no such luck. I was still the same the next day so, we made the decision for a second surgery to un-buckle the band and to secure it until we could go back in at a later time and buckle it back. During the surgery, my doctor found that my stomach was so inflamed that the band was too tight and this was causing my issues. He completed the surgery and I was finally able to have a liquid dinner that night. I went home from the hospital the next afternoon.

My doctor has done over 500 LapBand surgeries and he consulted with the top LapBand experts and they considered my complication a less than 1% of the time complication. That’s just my luck! 😀

I spent some time recovering and on December 18th, I had my final surgery to check everything and buckle the band back together. The surgery was a success and I was able to do it outpatient and go home the same day. I’m still in recovery mode and it’s been hard getting through the holidays. It’s just not been the same. I see the doctor in a few a days and hopeful to move to the next stage. I’ve lost over 70 pounds since March 1st. I’ll be sharing a lot of the information I learned through this process in 2018.

It’s hard to believe that one month ago today I was in the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican Republic is a beautiful country with crystal blue oceans and grand county mountain views. Between all it’s beauty, you’ll find extreme poverty. During our trip, we were able to build 6 outhouses, provide 4 floors in homes, fund and help build a Church wall, funded a new roof for another Church, and because Pastor Pedro did not think we had worked enough, we helped with the outside wall of the 3rd floor addition at the mission house. It wasn’t all work, we had some time to play at two different waterfalls. The cold water felt great on a very hot day, well after your body got used to the water. While we provided a lot of material things, the main objective was to provide the local Churches the tools that they needed to save souls for Christ. If we don’t reach them then who will?

I’m scrolling through facebook and I came across a video picture of a delicious looking spaghetti squash. It’s been about a month or so since I’ve made some and so I quickly used the save feature to make sure that I did not loose this recipe.

Spaghetti Squash is a good choice for me to make me feel like I’m getting pasta. Also, it’s great because my wife can eat her gluten free pasta without either of us filling guilty or unsatisfied.

I put the items on our grocery list this week and this afternoon I gave the recipe a try.

This is one recipe that makes you feel like your having a cheat meal without cheating.

Two notes:

I don’t know if I let the squash cook too long, but it was a little watery at the bottom. It was fine when I mixed it all up, but I would recommend to either add a little salt and pepper to the squash before it goes into the oven or over compensating the salt and pepper in the spinach mixture.

There are so many more proteins and vegetables that would go with this recipe. Next time, I’ll be sure to play around with the ingredients.

Cheesy Garlic Parmesan Spinach Spaghetti Squash

prep:10mins

cook:60mins

total:1hour, 10mins

author:jenn laughlin – peas and crayons

yield: 2-4servings

Ingredients

1 medium spaghetti squash

2.5 TBSP minced garlic

1 tsp olive or avocado oil

5 oz fresh spinach, chopped

1/2 cup cream

1 TBSP cream cheese (optional but deeeelish!)

1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese, plus extra for topping

salt and pepper, to taste

grated or sliced mozzarella for topping, to taste

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F.

Slice your spaghetti squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. For easy cutting, feel free to stick each squash in the microwave for 3-5 minutes to soften it up just a tad. The knife slides through way easier this way! Smaller squash will need about 3-4 minutes while larger ones will be good to go at 5 min.

Next grab a lipped baking sheet or a rimmed baking dish.

Rub the cut side of the squash with a teeny bit of olive oil.

Place inside a baking dish or atop rimmed baking sheet and roast face-down for about 40 minutes, or until tender and easily pierced with a fork. Cooking time will vary a bit depending on the size of your squash, and larger squash will need to roast a bit longer to tenderize. Once ready, the once rock-hard exterior of the squash will be visibly softened with a tender interior.

The squash can be roasted and stored in the fridge for a few days if you’d like to meal prep and plan ahead for a speedier dinner.

While the squash roasts, start on the sauce.

In a medium pot or skillet, bring a drizzle of olive oil to medium-high heat and sauté garlic until fragrant.

It’s hard to believe that at this time, just two weeks from now, our team will be making our way to the Dominican Republic. There is still a lot to get done, but I’m happy to report that I’ve made some great progress.

I’m happy to share a praise report! After a roller coaster ride that last few weeks trying to get my immunizations updated and required prescriptions, it’s all handled. Thanks to my awesome PA Kari and her staff at the Veranda, I was able to get my shots in office or a prescription so, that I could get it from my pharmacy. A big thanks to U-Save-It Pharmacy, especially the Northwest and Dawson Road locations for taking great care of me.

It’s a busy June, so I’ve made my packing list and I’ve been slowly starting over the last couple of weekends to get things together. I try to be an early packer. I work in a very busy and fast pace environment so, most the time that only leaves me the weekends to get everything together. Also, there is nothing more that raises the excitement level as when you can start packing.

There are two things that you can specifically pray for at this time.

Pray for the team as we prepare mentally, physically, and spiritually for the trip.

Food is a concern for me at this time. Pray that I will have the right kinds of food to eat.